Turf

November 2014

Little black pieces of artificial turf seem to follow me around. The soles of my socks have long been stained dark from rubbing against them so often. On the rare occasion that my mom convinces me to sweep the floor at home, I manage to find a couple; and whenever I walk off the football field, someone invariably points out a plastic rock (or thirty) clinging to my leg.

The turf bits are part of marching band life. They come with the... territory. From the first day, band time was marked not by the cycle of day and night but by the travel back and forth, from the band room to the football field. Most days, it was a brisk walk. On some of the hotter days, I trudged and watched the heat haze rise from the asphalt. And, there were even days when my friends and I would run, racing each other up to the field.

No matter how fast we got up there, Katie - one of the drum majors, the student leaders of the band - was always on the field before us. She carried a bright green binder of music and drill charts in her arm, a sharpness in her voice, and a smile on her face. If she wasn't conducting or running the metronome at the back of the drumline, then she was helping someone with their marching or their music - and yet, she always found time to talk with everyone about how they were doing, as people. Katie always moved quickly from person to person; she probably got all kinds of turf in her shoes. And I would watch and feel a deep-seated desire to run around and help people, too, and maybe steal away a few plastic rocks in my shoes.

In the band, I found a closeness of community that I'd never had before. An unspoken bond, grass roots or whatever holds together those artificial fields, grew between us when we were not looking closely: during the hours standing on turf that singed holes in cheap rubber soles whenever the heat broke ninety degrees, on long bus rides of raucous laughter and the hushed tones of confession, or even in darkened classrooms before competitions when we were all tense and excited, holding hands, and singing together. Really, it took root the first day of band camp: a brief almost-moment when the older kids sized us up, and then suddenly, introductions, smiles, and hugs, our first step onto the dark plastic turf, and our first clumsy formations.

With mellophones to the left and the clamor of the drumline behind, fellow saxes to my right and the green plastic grass wide open in front of me, I found a family. We whispered stories and jokes as if the directors were not watching and grabbed dinner after practice, because five hours together in a day wasn't enough. With each passing day, surrounded by friends and fellow performers, we moved a little more like a single entity in smooth steps, twenty-two point five inches from the last. On championship night, we presented a united front, eyes with pride, up against the world in the grandstands; we huddled together for warmth while Katie and the other drum majors accepted the trophy. Somewhere along the way, the little plastic rocks rattling in my shoes stopped being nuisances and started being reminders that I was a part of the band, our band.

Time moved too quickly. Too soon, my favorite people wore caps and gowns instead of shakos and uniforms on that same familiar black turf while we played “Pomp and Circumstance” on graduation night. Today, as a drum major myself, I still tell stories about them, an echo of when they told me stories about the best people that I never had the chance to meet. I love being around the band because when we perform, we make music that is inspired by not only the people around us, but by the people who came before us. The seniors disappeared with their own bits of turf; the band, and the turf as a whole, continues.

August 2019

This is an edited version of an essay I wrote in the fall of 2014.

There's so much that I left out, that I didn't write about: the incredible amount of work and care that the band parents put in to make it happen, the romances both realized and unrequited (you really can see a lot from on top of the podium), the pressures of participating while in a school and community that really valued academics, the difficult times that really made you question whether you were doing enough.

And there is so much that has changed since then. Basically everyone I knew as a student has graduated by now - I would come to visit, but who would I even see? One of our directors finally retired after decades of service, and Katie (my drum major Katie!) took on the mantle herself straight out of college. From what I hear the academic pressures in Walnut have only gotten more intense over the years. And I haven't spent a lot of time on my high school football field lately, to be fair, but there's a noticeable lack of turf in my shoes these days.

Despite all of that, I sincerely hope that the feelings that I wrote about above are still there, for current and future members of the band. The people that I met and experiences that I had in the band have been, and continue to be, greatly positive influences on my life. It feels like it's been forever since I wore the uniform or stood on the podium, but just for old times' sake: Band dismissed.

Special thanks to Aurora Ling for motivating this writing, both as one of those special people I met through marching band, and also more recently with the simple message of "where's your blog bro".